Well here we go again ... after 9 years I'm restarting this crapton of headaches to see where it leads me.
I got to say, I'm kind of hesitant to put my builds here. For better or worst my last post on the ATT was April 30th 2014 and even if I chimed in a bit during the first year of the Ronin Army forum, I effectively left this community back then. there was no particular reason for it, it just happened that I started gravitating toward other gaming systems and I lost my interest.
In early 2017 I returned to the Ronin Army and found out that a lot of you just vanished from that Forum. I started searching and I found out what happened. Later on Jab tracked me down through Deviantart and ... well, I'm back, although I don't think I would ever be able to keep the same crazy amount of building I did back in the day. At the time I was unemployed, now I work at translating RPG books in Italian, which is a pretty time consuming job.

So let's start with a bang. Ever since I left I started playing a lot of videogames and, in spite of my usual hate for online games, I got hooked to Overwatch. I don't know exactly why, but the game just works for me, in spite of the fact that I still can't bring myself to play most online shooters.

Overwatch

Development: Project Titan

According to Jeff Kaplan -- Overwatch's Lead designer and vice-president of Blizzard -- the first form of Overwatch was a M.M.O. called Project Titan. The entire concept behind it was to create a future Earth that was "worth fighting for", with a super-badass team of heroes at its core: Overwatch.
Titan was eventually scrapped, but this particular concept laid the foundation for the new project.

In Game Background

Omnic Crisis

Sometimes around 2045 the entire world faced its biggest danger yet: the Omnic Crisis. Omnics were self-upgrading robots capable of autonomous learning created by the Omnica Corporation to serve as workforce for the humans. A series of rogue A.I. called the God Programs modified the automated factories to build Omnics geared toward war.
Russia was the first country that had to face them in battle and the causalities were nothing short of bone chilling. In an attempt to retaliate, the Russian military fielded the Svyatogors, gigantic combat mechs built by the Volskaya Industries. Other countries followed suit, the U.S.Army started the Soldier Enhancement Program, trying to create soldiers capable of facing the Omnics in single combat; the Bundeswehr created a specialized unit, the Crusaders, armed with a massive power armor, meant to tackle the Omnics units at close range. However, the self-improving algorithms at the heart of the factories allowed them to adapt and counter each individual nation's measures; no country alone could effectively fight back against the omnics.

At the eleventh hour, the United Nations, at the urging of under-secretary general Gabrielle Adawe, played the last card: banding together the best soldiers and scientists of the various nations in a single strike team aimed at destroying the Omnics' command infrastructure. The initial team was put under the authority of two U.S.Army veterans: Gabriel Reyes and Jack Morrison, both test subjects of the Soldier Enhancement Program. Reyes was the field commander, but it was Morrison who really shaped the team into the future Overwatch, he had a knack to bring out the best from the others. For the rest of the Crisis the team -- codename Overwatch -- became the tip of the spear aimed aginst the Omnics and the God Programs. Their surgical actions forced the Omnics back more and more until it became clear that a truce was the only viable option.

The Overwatch Generation

So, the war was over and the rebuilding began. It was impossible to destroy all the Omnics, there were simply too many and they were too useful. Still, in most countries they became second class citizens, a new working class of slaves. The Omnica Corporation went bankrupt and the majority of the factories were derstroyed or quaratined, but not all. Australia negotiated a separate peace and handed the factories over to the Omnics, but the Australian Liberation Front nuked them, transforming most of the Outback into a Mad Max style desert. Nigeria was the other exception, thanks to the influence of Adawe, in this country the Omnics were able to get better deals and live as almost-equals to humans.

Instead of being disbanded Overwatch endured, but was subject to a substantial reconstruction: Morrison was promoted field commander, while in spite of Reyes's seniority. To compensate, Reyes became the commader of Blackwatch, a secret black ops team meant to tackle those problems that Overwatch couldn't. Simply put, while Reyes was the better soldier, Morrison proved to be the better man. As a result Reyes started to resent his old friend and his growing popularity, but for the the better part of two decades the team worked.
All in all it was nothing short of a golden age, the members of Overwatch became not just Earth's guardians, but also innovators, the ranks expanded to include scientists and medics, pushing forth the bounduaries of research. All was well to the point that some countries started to revise their stance on Omnics until the so-called Venice Incident.

The Fall

The details are unclear, but Blackwatch blew up the Venice operation big time and the U.N. decided to suspend all Blackwatch agents pending an investigation. At this point there were already rumors of unethical and illegal operations spreading throughout the media. Shortly thereafter a group of Omnic terrorist called Null Sector attacked London and -- at the urging of the team most recent recruit Lena Oxton -- Morrison dispacted a strike team in spite of the U.K. goverment prohibition.
From here on the team faced numerous bittersweet victories. They were able to aprehend the third Doomfist, one of the leader of the terrorist group Talon, but several agents were gravely wounded in the process and Captain Ana Amari, Morrison's second-in-command, was officially K.I.A. during a rescue operation, but the worst was yet to come.

Finally, the U.N. stopped all Overwatch operations, but they were unable to prevent what followed. Reyes, now completely out of control, attacked Morrison right in the Overwatch's HQ in Zürich. During the following fight the entire structure exploded and both soldier were apparently killed. With both gone the dismantling of the entire roganization was largely cerimonial, but Director Petras decided to go a step further and drafted a resolution, later know as the Petras Acts banning all of Overwatch's operations forever.

Heroes Never Die

While Overwacth was gone, many agents kept fighting and helping people on their own, for the better part of a decade. Meanwhile their enemies didn't stand idle: Talon expanded its influence, thanks in no small part to his new top agents: Reyes (now using ther alias of Reaper), Widowmaker and Moira O'Deorain (Blackwatch's former chief geneticist). At the same time Russia and Korea faced a resurgence of Omnics.
At the old Watchpoint Gibraltar, Winston, a former Overwatch agent, was attacked by Reaper and Widowmaker, who were after the team database. Hoping to help his old comrades, Winston decided to drop the act and recalled all the former agents.

Builder Notes

So this is pretty much it: Winston's call is the starting point of the game and the beginning of my headaches. All in all, Overwatch is a pretty interesting setting, merging several classic superhero tropes with a cyberpunk aestetic, but with a much more positive vibe than usual. Often a cyberpunk vibe equates to a very bleak and unappealing future, but here the Blizzard team worked really well to gave the impression of a world that is really hanging by a thread, but a might strong one. There's a definite sense of hope, but desperation is very tangible as well.

Power Level, the Great Unknown

Translating Overwatch characters in M&M isn't easy: the entire game is a shooter and many characters use weapons that are, more or less, common, like Soldier 76's rifle or Reaper's shotgun. This seem to imply a lower PL than most superhero settings. At the same time there's a problem with relative PLs: in game most characters are balanced to shine in certain specific situation and such in others, making a correct assessment a nightmare.
My personal guess is that most charactersset around PL8: they're the best of the best, but they're not beyond the reach of other humans.

Johnny and His Gun

Another big point in the Overwatch universe are weapons (of course). Almost every character has one (Moira and Zenyatta are only possible exceptions), but they're not just a toll or a functional element, like in many other FPS. The weapons of Overwatch are very much representative of the personality of their wielder: 76's rifle is a old but well oiled and brutally efficient fighting machine, like its owner has seen it all, but it still has some fight left in it; Winston's gauss cannon is appropriately heavy and can dish out some pretty devastating damage, but it's not a weapon of war, just like the big gorilla isn't a primarily a fighter.
The big issue in M&M is: are they devices or equipment?
In my opinion both answers are correct and a lot hinges of the individual, rather than the weapon. Many are more or less standard issue guns, other are clearly custom-build or feature elements that can't be standard in any way, shape or form.

Skills

The last big problem I faced is that a franchise based around a FPS doesn't work all that will to determine the characters' out of combat skills, especially when working with a system as details as M&M 2nd edition. This, paired with the fact that I'm now more interested into lighter gaming system, made me realize that I needed a slightly more efficient format. Enter the 2.5 skill system. This is more or less an attempt to import something closer to the 3rd edition skill system into its predecessor. I'll make a dedicated post later on, but for now these are the general rules:

There only about 12 skills and only one of them -- Profession -- is a "open skill"

Skills cost 1pp for every 2 ranks

The Task Focus feat now adds a +4 bonus to a single skill within a limited scope (Attractive is now a form of Task Focus)

The Language skill provides 1 Language per rank or 2 if you're using the Graded Language System (whcih I do)

Last edited by Woodclaw on Wed Jan 10, 2018 11:34 am, edited 2 times in total.

Enemy (Gabriel Reyes): Morrison and Reyes had been through a lot together and the betrayal burn even more for that.

Obsession (the Mission): Morrison knows for a fact that Overwatch was framed and he won't stop until he discover who is responsible.

Shell of a Man:For almost a decade Morrison fought a one-man-war against an enemy he know nothing about; once an idealist, he's now bitter and deeply cynical.

Let's start at the beginning: Jack Morrison, Overwatch former commander, didn't die at Zurich. Somehow he survived, but allowed the rest of the world to think otherwise. He assumed the guise of Soldier 76 and started his own private war against those who framed Overwatch.

In comic book terms Morrison was pretty much the Steve Rogers of Overwatch: he was the leader but, more importantly, the moral compass of the entire team. Going with the analogy, Soldier 76 is more or less Nomad, the hero gone rogue.

Like many other characters, Morrison abilities are very much guesswork, he's pushing 60 at the very least, but going by some of his pre-battle dialogue he seem to be in crazy good shape, although he looks really old under that visor. I went for my old friend Half-Effect Immunity to represent this: Jack might not live much longer than a normal human, but his body doesn't suffer agaig as much as it should.

The Tactical Visor starts a thread that will be common throughout all the Overwatch builds: the ultimate abilities of many characters will be somehow flawed to represent their limited uses. In this case the visor batteries have a limited duration and can only provide full targeting assistance for roughly one minute.

A younger Morrison will probably swap some stats (lower Wisdom, higher Charisma) and have more leader feats.

I can't belive I forgot to include Jack's rocket launcher ... shame on me.

Last edited by Woodclaw on Sat Jan 06, 2018 7:51 pm, edited 5 times in total.

AWESOME!!!! So glad to see you back building, Woodclaw . Your thread was one of the best old-school 2e ones, and while I can barely remember some of the stuff (... Task Focus?), it's a big throwback to see it. And best of all, there's stuff I can swipe for my OWN Overwatch builds !

The game really hit huge right away- not only does Blizzard have a heck of a lot of Gaming Goodwill going for them, but their design team just absolutely nailed it right out of the park with the character designs. Hit after hit after hit with this crew, with only a few weak links (Soldier: 76 & Torby are the ones I'd say are the most generic and boring).

So the Biotic Field Generator is more of a Healing thing than a Regeneration one? That was unclear from the Wiki stuff.

AWESOME!!!! So glad to see you back building, Woodclaw . Your thread was one of the best old-school 2e ones, and while I can barely remember some of the stuff (... Task Focus?), it's a big throwback to see it. And best of all, there's stuff I can swipe for my OWN Overwatch builds !

The game really hit huge right away- not only does Blizzard have a heck of a lot of Gaming Goodwill going for them, but their design team just absolutely nailed it right out of the park with the character designs. Hit after hit after hit with this crew, with only a few weak links (Soldier: 76 & Torby are the ones I'd say are the most generic and boring).

So the Biotic Field Generator is more of a Healing thing than a Regeneration one? That was unclear from the Wiki stuff.

Thanks. The original Task Focus from Mecha & Manga was one of those oddball feats that I liked in theory, but didn't work so well in practice.

As for the Biotic Field Generator ... it's often kind of hard to establish where Healing ends and Regeneration starts. I still think that one of the big failures of 2e was making them so different in terms of mechanics. Most of my Overwatch builds will use Healing simply because it's easier to build it to affect others. Maybe 76's generator would work better as a Total Healing effect, but that would go overboard with PPs and I wanted these build to be as close to playable as possible.

"My dearest Fareeha. Every mother hopes for a better life for her daughter. I was willing to fight and die for it. [...] I never told you of the weight I carried from all those I killed to keep everyone safe."

Old Soldier: Ana is 60 and while she's in staggering good shape for a woman of her age, she knows that she can't keep going forever.

One-eyed: Ana lost her bionic right eye during a sniper duel with Widowmaker, this slowed her down a tad, but sometimes this comes back biting her in the ass.

Motivation (family): Ana has done many questionable things in her life -- including faking her own death -- and she's fully aware that every person she killed had a family she knows nothing about, but her desire to keep her family and loved ones safe is way stronger.

Wanted (Shrike): Under the alias of Shrike, Ana has caused considerable damage to Talon and there's a bounty on her head.

Overwatch former second-in-command, team mama bear (she's called so in game) and quite possibly the best sniper on the planet Ana Amari was declared M.I.A. before the Zurich Incident; during a rescue operation she lost her bionic right eye when she couldn't bring herself to shot her old friend Amélie Lacroix. She underwent emergecy surgery under a fake identity and disappeared.

If Morrison is Captain America gone rogue, Ana is more or less Nick Fury; eyepatch aside, she has been Morrison's platonic life partner for decades, bailing his ass out of the fire a number of times. She was the better tactician, but not as good of a front line commander.

I know that some Widowmaker fans will take issue with me saying that Ana is the better sniper, but let me elaborate a bit: it's true that Windowmaker actually won their first sniper duel, but Ana was already 50 at the time and even after losing her dominant eye she's still almost as dangerous as her opponent

Also, Ana is one of my favorite characters both in concept and design (if not in execution) of the entire game, so sue me

About the eye ... after much thinking and rethinking i decided to go for a complication, rather than a Drawback because -- again like Nick Fury -- Ana rarely seem to have problems because of it and because it was too easy to just buy the right combination of skills and feats, resulting in final balance of 0pp.

I took some liberties with this build because there was simply no way to reproduce some of Ana's in-game abilities without going over the PL8 budget, the biggest of all is the Biotic Grenade. In game the grenade heals all the allies in a small area and prevent enemies in the same area to heal, which translate in a Healing + Nullify linked effect with selective area on top of it. Something this crazy powerful has to be a device, but I really wanted to highlight how the rifle and grenades are actually using the same technology, so I switched to a different arrangement: Ana packs 5 grenades and before throwing she decide if they're going to heal or poison the targeted area, just like her rifle rounds. For those who want the original package this is the deal keeping the same PP total

Remove the grenades from the equipment and reduce the feat to Equipment 5

yeah, Ana's an interesting character- in what other game do you find an OLD LADY as a playable character? Who's also a SOLDIER? It's so unusual- most games would either retard her aging process, or make her a super-MILF type. But Ana is a grizzled old veteran of the front.

Her powers, though, are nutty- just stuff you'd NEVER see in comics (HEALING DARTS? A Healing/Counter-Healing Grenade?). It makes her a pesky character to build.

yeah, Ana's an interesting character- in what other game do you find an OLD LADY as a playable character? Who's also a SOLDIER? It's so unusual- most games would either retard her aging process, or make her a super-MILF type. But Ana is a grizzled old veteran of the front.

I think that the design team really nailed Ana's look: you can clearly see that she was a beauty when she was younger and she still looks extremely dignified (or as Reinhardt says "as lovey as ever").
Plus, I swear, if I could find a way to get a coat like hers I would without a second thought.

Her powers, though, are nutty- just stuff you'd NEVER see in comics (HEALING DARTS? A Healing/Counter-Healing Grenade?). It makes her a pesky character to build.

If I look at comics in general the number of heroes that have actual healing powers is surprisingly limited, off the top of my head the only one I can think of are Danny Rand and Lionel Jeffries (Box's brother). In actual fact there was a panel in John Ostrander's Heroes for Hire series where Jane Foster observed how uncommon the ability to heal was among superheroes.